Cape CopCast

How Detectives Track Thieves & Return Your Stuff with Property Crimes Sgt. Jeremy Niland

• Cape Coral Police Department

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Ever wonder why so many vehicle burglaries happen quietly, in minutes, and often on the same street? On this episode of the Cape CopCast, we sit down with Property Crimes Unit Sergeant Jeremy Niland to map the patterns behind vehicle break-ins, stolen cars, and retail theft, and the small, repeatable steps that stop them. From late-night patrol catches to detective follow-ups, you’ll hear how camera clips, serial numbers, and neighbor tips merge into a clean timeline that recovers stolen gear and holds people accountable.

Sgt. Niland walks us through a recent case near Oasis Boulevard where coordination led to a search warrant and a pile of stolen property returned, including a kid’s softball equipment. That human side drives the work, but so does smart process: parking under your security camera, keeping valuables out of sight, locking doors, and recording serial numbers for bikes, tools, and electronics. We also dig into why many offenders are teens acting on impulse and what truly makes a car a target.

Retail theft gets a spotlight too. We break down barcode switching, booster crews, and the statewide networks that treat stolen goods like inventory. You’ll hear how loss prevention teams share intel across stores and why “it’s just a big-box loss” is a myth—those costs reappear in higher prices. Along the way, social media plays a starring role, with community IDs turning anonymous faces into names, and the occasional viral moment—like a man in Batman pajamas stopping a burglar—reminding us that neighbors still make the difference.

If you want fewer crimes on your block, this conversation gives you the playbook: simple habits, fast calls when something feels off, and a community-first mindset that makes theft a losing bet. Listen, share with a neighbor, and subscribe for more practical safety insights. 

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome back to another episode of the Cave Copcast. I'm one of your hosts, Lisa Greenberg, and I'm Officer Mercedes Simons.

SPEAKER_02:

Together we make up the public affairs office. And today we have a very special guest. We have Sergeant Nyland. And I'll let you introduce uh a little bit about yourself, maybe your history in the department, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. Thanks for having me again. Welcome. Appreciate it. I'm Sergeant Jeremy Nyland. I started back in uh the very end of 2007. I got hired. And so I went to the academy and stuff like that. Finished in 2008, and I did about seven years on patrol where I was a patrol officer. I was field training officer back then. And um in 2015 is when I was luckily got selected to be in our street crimes unit, which was a unit we used to have in the investigative services bureau. I spent a year in street crimes, and then from there I moved on to the property crimes unit in 2016. So I was a detective for three years working in property crimes cases. And in 2019, I was lucky enough to be promoted to sergeant. Um from that point, uh 2019, I went to patrol, as a lot of new sergeants, sergeants do, and become a patrol supervisor. Um, so I was on patrol for about four years. Um did field training, um, supervision when it was on patrol back in those days. So I worked with a lot of the trainees and the FTOs while I was on patrol. Um after that, I was lucky enough to come up to the investigative services bureau uh a couple years ago and take over a special investigations unit, which I was in from uh 2023 then to 2023 until a couple months ago. Um, and then I moved over to the property crimes unit, so now the sergeant of the property crimes unit, which kind of comes full circle because it's I'm doing now supervising what I used to do um back when I was a property crimes detective. So um throughout my career, I've done other stuff too. I was on a SWAT team for about 11 years. I was a CPR first aid instructor and done other things too. Like I'm a bicycle instructor, so very quite so I've done a lot of different stuff, been lucky and been blessed to uh work in a lot of different parts of the department.

SPEAKER_01:

So now we're in property crimes, and I know you guys are extremely busy.

SPEAKER_00:

We are, yeah, we are very busy. So I have a unit of five detectives, and property crimes encompasses any kind of theft, any kind of burglary. You know, we handle um stolen cars, um any sort of felony theft. So we have you know high dollar retail theft stuff. Um so anything that would encompass thefts, burglaries, stolen cars, stolen property, things like that is is where our unit gets involved in that stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

I think we're very lucky that we live in a city where we don't have you know super high levels of violent crime. One thing I think that we see often is like car break-ins, vehicle burglaries, retail thefts, those types of things. So that's why I say you guys must be so busy.

SPEAKER_00:

We do, unfortunately. But on the positive note is we really have a great community and we have a lot of cooperation. We have a lot of people that are willing to help us solve those cases. And we've had lots of instances recently where we've worked with our um patrol officers. Generally, a lot of stuff you guys know happen at night, but for the people at home, the car break-ins happen in the middle of the night, people are sleeping. Um, but we have great patrol officers that are getting out there and they're catching catching these guys in the act, and that's where our detectives come in, kind of put all the pieces together. And we've had a bunch of instances recently where car brokers have gotten caught in the act, and and you know, we recover people's property, um, get that back to them, and you know.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, we had one really good case like that last week, right? I think we did a release on it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so we had a case um last week, and it was kind of in the uh the general area of Oasis Boulevard, and we had a uh gentleman that lives nearby um that we actually connected to a couple of those recent burglaries, and um we're still investigating some of it, so I'm gonna you know be limited on what I say a little bit, but but we we do use some innovative things to um try to connect people to these crimes that people might not not think about. And it's not just it's not just us, it's you know, it's it's other parts of the investigative services bureau and other detectives that help us tie those pieces together. And uh ended up doing a search warrant a house, recovering a lot of stolen property um that we're fortunately able to get back. One thing I will talk about is unfortunately uh one of the victims, um, she had some softball equipment stolen from her vehicle with her name on it. And uh we were only able to recover that and get that, you know, get that back to her, which is which is good. Um detective that handles the case screw did a great job, but he really took that to heart because he has kids too. And you know, to have somebody's you know, yeah, their softball stuff stolen from their car, and it's very personal.

SPEAKER_02:

He tried to throw it in the trash, right? That was terrible.

SPEAKER_00:

So that's something that you know our detectives, you know, it hits them, you know, yeah. They want to help and get that stuff back for the for those people. For sure. So it was a it was a good ending.

SPEAKER_02:

And for those in case you you might have seen the release, it was the guy that walked into somebody's garage midday and stole one of their scooters, and behind it it actually had a whole attachment for their other child so that they could ride alongside their other sibling and not feel left out. And this guy took the whole attachment that you know that this victim had built for him and his kids. So that was really sad. And we were, I think we're really happy to kind of get justice for that family, find out who it was, identify him. A lot of people are great and they have security camera footage, and that security camera footage is helpful to tying pieces of the investigation together to build a timeline. And just overall, we have a lot of people uh just willing to help us and donate that. We can post it on social media to help with identification, not just in that case, but in a lot of different cases. We have a lot of success being able to post video footage online and people are like, oh, hey, I know that guy, because we don't necessarily know them, we don't interact with them. But Cape Coral is very large, but can also be very small. So I we've had a lot of really good success with that.

SPEAKER_01:

It's nice when we're able to post things on social media to help you guys out.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely, and social media is is is huge. Um, I remember back when I was a detective working um with public affairs and getting that stuff out on social media. And when I was a detective, I solved a lot of cases just by getting that information out to the public. And as we know, this day and age, you're almost always on camera wherever you go. Yeah, fortunately or unfortunately, how you see it, but for people that like to make crime, that's not good, and it's a reason why a lot of people will get caught. And you know, usually if you go down a neighborhood and let's say you break into a couple cars, you're usually going to be on camera in at least one of them. And you know, just one instance where someone's on a camera can help us solve multiple cases.

SPEAKER_01:

That's why it's crazy to me that people are continuing to commit this kind of crime because everyone these days, uh 90% of people have surveillance. So you'd think, What is the risk really worth the reward? What are you really gonna get out of it if you're getting caught? A and B, what's in someone's car that's that valuable that makes it worth getting caught?

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. I totally agree. Unfortunately, a lot of times is these are these are kids or teenagers, and you know, they're not thinking about it the way you and I would, because you know, we're grown adults and we're thinking rationally. I think a lot of times it's it's it's the kids and maybe they're bored, or maybe one kid has a bad idea and a couple kids jump on it, but um you know, for the people, some people do feel bad. Oh, I don't want somebody to get in trouble. For the most part, you know, when the kids get in trouble, you know, in the juvenile justice, they do try to you know teach them right from wrong, rehabilitate them, and just make sure they don't do it again.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

If that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So for those watching at home, what are some good tips that people can employ to avoid being a victim of any sort of property crime, vehicle burglary, that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so um I have some tips. It's probably some some things that people know, but um you hear all the time, you know, we say lock it or lose it, right? That's a big thing. So you know, it's just a button. Lock your car. Obviously, you know, we don't want to leave anything valuable in the car that we don't need to. If you do and you have a trunk, that's a better spot than just lying in your car. Also, if you do have stuff valuables that you don't want to take out, keeping them out of you is huge. So lots of times, you know, during the holidays, we have people that might leave their purse on the passenger side, maybe, that you can see and a bad guy or somebody that has a bad idea might walk by, might see that purse and to see your car unlocked and just grab it. So just some of those basic things. Um as far as your your home, you know, there's things you can do if you have cameras, right? You can park your car right under your camera. Yep. That way, if somebody does go near your car, they're on camera. Because we do have times where you know we'll have bad camera angles. Maybe somebody has a camera system, but their car was parked over here, but the camera didn't see it. Um, so that's an easy thing. Just keeping up with your property and you know, making sure your your hedges are cut and you know there's there's a good view of your property. When you take care of your property, you know, you're less likely to have people, you know, come onto your property if that makes sense. Um Yeah, so those are you know just some of the basic things and and the good thing about our city, which which I know because I live here too, is we have great neighbors. Just knowing your neighbors, looking out for your neighbors, like my neighbors, you know, we have great relationships. He goes away, hey, I'm away. You know, I'll go grab, I'll go grab the packages off his front door and bring them in my house, or you know, just knowing what's going on in your neighborhood and knowing your neighbors and knowing, hey, that's weird. There's no kid that lives across the street that's in two in the morning going for the car. Just knowing that. And and you know, lots of times people are like scared to call the police, like they think, oh, I don't know what's going on. I don't want to accuse anybody of anything. And I'm sure you've when you were on you know, patrol, you would hear that from people. Well, I didn't want to say anything because our officers are trained well.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, we always tell people just to call.

SPEAKER_00:

They're just there to check it out. It doesn't mean if you think something's suspicious that somebody's gonna get arrested for no reason or they're gonna be in trouble. Our officers will check it out, and if you sometimes it's nothing, lots of times it is, and the officer will just go, oh, hey, it's okay. Yeah. And but sometimes we do have people that see things and unfortunately don't call, and and that could have been like the break we needed to stop that burglary or to stop that crime, you know. So I want to encourage people that we're always there to check it out. We won't be mad if you call if you're wrong. Yeah, you know, our officers are trained to figure out if something is wrong or not, and they do figure out if it's right or wrong, and you know, it's not a big deal. You know, we're here to help.

SPEAKER_02:

My favorite people in Cape Coral are like are the retirees that always know what's going on, the people that are always out there walking their dog. They know who's there, who doesn't belong. And I and I love the people that are quick to call because those are the situations that we can get there as quickly as possible, contain the situation. If somebody is doing something they're not supposed to be, then we can get there and handle it as we need to, or potentially be like, oh, it's not it's not anything that we need to to worry about, it's not anything if it's actually suspicious and go from there. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Like you're either the worst case scenario if you call and it's nothing is that you quote unquote waste our time. And that's not a big deal at all in the grand scheme of things when you consider that the alternative is that something happens and you don't call and someone becomes a victim of some kind of crime.

SPEAKER_00:

And there's a lot of officers out there that they wanna they want to be out there and they they want to help. And if somebody's doing wrong, they want to catch them. Exactly. So they're they're perfectly fine going to those calls and helping. Exactly. Don't hesitate to call us.

SPEAKER_01:

Give us a call. And then the other thing too is like with you kind of mentioned this, but this is such a crime of opportunity. So just not providing the opportunity. We don't see often that it's like the smash and grabs. Most of the times when we're looking through the reports and putting things out, it's people who've left their cars unlocked or left the keys in the vehicle. And that's when we see it's not like someone who has their keys inside their house usually and gets their car stolen. It's usually like, oh, I left my keys in the car. Nothing ever happens when that type of stuff happens.

SPEAKER_00:

All those basic stuff we talk about, not leaving valuables out in the yard. If you got, let's say you have a$5,000 electric bike, put it in the garage, lock it up at night, it's just stuff like that. But yeah, most of the time, you know, when these vehicle burglar occur, it is somebody going down the street and they check the door handles, and if your car's locked, they move on. And they wait to find one that's unlocked because when they start breaking stuff, we're gonna get the police are gonna get called. Exactly. I know they want to be as quiet as possible and they want it want to be as easy as possible for them. The easiest way is just open an unlocked door for them.

SPEAKER_02:

We had a situation last year that we actually posted on social media that was very similar to the Grinch Stole Christmas. They went into these people's cars and actually had stole they had Christmas packages in there ready to go. I think it was even Christmas Eve, maybe Christmas morning, and it was all stolen out of their car. They ended up stealing the motor vehicle, the purse inside the car. And that's I I really hope that that doesn't nothing like that happens again this year, because I'm sure that that was probably a nightmare for them. It probably made Christmas a lot less enjoyable. And unfortunately, you know, I don't think anybody's heart grew three sizes that day. So it was just kind of a loss. But if you lock your car doors, take out all the valuables, you you avoid that kind of situation, especially during the holiday season that we've seen, can be really unfortunate.

SPEAKER_01:

Are those uh vehicle burglaries what keep you the busiest?

SPEAKER_00:

Um yeah, I mean, we kind of we kind of do it all in the uh in the theft apartment. So yeah, it's what it's one of the things that keeps us busy. It is, you know, we let let's say we have 10 10 cars that are broken into it in the street that might get assigned to one detective, and that that's a lot of work to track down. Um, and there's ways we can track stuff down, right? People have stuff um that are serial numbers on that. We can use a database and we can track those serial numbers. Lots of times people will sell that stuff, and we're able to track that stuff as well. That's another another tip. If you have high dollar things that you really care about, you know, just take down your serial numbers, have that handy because that gives us the ability to track it down. Whereas if we don't have it, it's really hard to prove that let's say that TV is your TV, whereas a serial number, it's one and only, and we can get that back to you if we can find it and track it down.

SPEAKER_01:

That makes sense. I'm sure retail theft is another thing that you guys do a lot of the high dollar retail theft. Yes, yeah, people are getting crazy these days with that. They're like switching barcodes, they're doing all the crazy stuff, and it's like, you know, if all the time you spend into looking up how to do all this and trying to make it happen and eventually getting caught doing it anyway, you could just put into getting a real job and making money and not having to steal. Talum leases.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. I wish they would. But yeah, same thing with what we talked about. You know, there's video cameras at every retail store.

SPEAKER_01:

Every store.

SPEAKER_00:

Most of these big stores, they have dedicated loss prevention um officers that are that's their one job is to watch the cameras, track down people stealing, and there we have great partnerships with them where you know they will provide us identities of people, not just with at their store, but um other fests that maybe don't include or have nothing to do with with you know their store, you know, because they're gonna know a lot of those people and they have partnerships with all of their lost prevention officers in other areas. Because there are there are groups that travel around statewide and and do these organized retail fest schemes and stuff like that, and you know, they resell it for money, and it's unfortunately a business for them.

SPEAKER_01:

I remember we did a release on one where the guy said he didn't even know the guy, and who knows if that part's true, but he was like, Yeah, I didn't even know the guy, I just started working for him because he was giving me cash and telling me, you know, go to this store in Cape Coral and this store in Fort Myers and this store, you know, working up and down from Miami and doing all of that. So um we've definitely heard of those organized rings that are hitting Cape Coral and committing that type of crime. And I think a lot of times people are like, Well, why should I care? Like Walmart loses a couple bucks, what's the big deal? But at the end of the day, this impacts you because they end up having to raise their prices to make up for it.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a great point. And people don't realize that exactly what you said. You're paying a couple extra dollars every time you go to the store because you have to you are covering the stores covering their losses because people steal. So it doesn't affect you personally, but you are paying a little bit extra. And the same thing goes with your to your car insurance, right? If your car gets stolen and your car gets totaled, that's a loss, right? And you're probably paying a little bit more in insurance because you're covering those losses because people steal. Right. Which is you know what I try to encourage our victims, you know. This is why we like to press, you know, prosecute these people so that they stop, because if no one stole, your car insurance would be less, your groceries would be less, your TV from Target would be less, and that's better for all the good people that are doing the right thing, you know?

SPEAKER_01:

100%. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

I know that you said there's a story that you need to tell about your shoes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so yeah, we were admiring your shoes. You can see my shoes on the way in there. They seem to be very popular when I wear them. So I only wear these like once in a very great while. So we were supposed to do the podcast last week, and I was sick, and we talked, we talked and said, Hey, this ain't the best day. I don't want to get you guys sick. Um so I had worn these that day. Well, this that day that I wore these happened to be the day that the um case we talked about, where we did a search warrant near Oasis Boulevard where we recovered from stolen property. Um, I happened to be wearing these shoes, and these shoes are very uncomfortable. And when you're walking around all day, you're walking around someone's house and searching and stuff. So, yeah, my feet were were killing me at the end of the day. So yeah, that's just kind of how it worked out. I should have gone home and changed, so it's my own fault.

SPEAKER_01:

But listen, you try to look fancy on the pod, and then you get stuck doing a search warrant and you're walking around. So we appreciate you wearing it.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you for your sacrifice.

SPEAKER_00:

And everybody was like, Why are you wearing what's up with your sh? I like your why are you wearing those? And I told them I was supposed to do the podcast today. Usually we'll go in the closet till I have another episode. Till your next podcast episode. Yeah, till my next podcast. Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02:

That's awesome. Shout out to Mike Scarlato. We'll drag him on next time. Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_01:

We tried to get Detective Scarlato. He's the one person that we probably get the most images and video from asking us to post on our social media to help with his cases.

SPEAKER_00:

And I would say we had the Batman. Yeah, the Batman one that went viral nationwide. Everybody Saw that. I mean, that is kind of funny.

SPEAKER_01:

It was crazy the the guy who uh stopped the burglar and his Batman pajamas. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm still playing it better.

SPEAKER_01:

No, you can't make that up. Like, that's just it was perfect. It was absolutely perfect. Yeah, he's got a lot of good cases. So maybe next time we'll uh twist his arm hard enough to get him on here.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate you being here. See, we don't bite. Wasn't too bad.

SPEAKER_00:

That wasn't too boring.

SPEAKER_01:

No, you were great. You were great. And it's important information that people need to know, especially as we head into the holiday season and you know, people are getting gifts and all that good stuff. Don't leave them in your car, lock your car, take everything inside, conceal it, park your car under your cameras. And I think that's that'll do it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, because these are the crimes that I feel like most people find themselves running across, just the average person that we, you know, run into in Cape Coral that's a victim of these crimes. I feel like it's probably the most common. Yes. So it's something that we were really wanted to get on top of, address. And luckily we have a very hardworking sergeant and a and his team of incredible detectives that oftentimes get people their property back. That's always the goal is to return their property that to them and then prosecute whoever was involved in taking it. And for sure. That's something that we love being able to do for our community.

SPEAKER_01:

If you commit a crime like this in Cape Coral, you're gonna get caught.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So beware.

SPEAKER_01:

That's my message.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the most important thing is uh getting people their stuff back. So if we can do that, you know, we're that's a win for us.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining us. It's been awesome.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02:

We will see you next time and thank you for listening. Stay safe.

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Lisa Greenberg

Host
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Mercedes Simonds

Host